


Into the Vortex

by orchestralstab



Series: Falling [3]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, Oral Sex, POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 04:13:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchestralstab/pseuds/orchestralstab
Summary: Nope, she’s not fine. She is a fucking transcendent mess.





	Into the Vortex

By sheer strength of will, Avery manages to keep her hands off of Liam for the entirety of the suddenly long walk from the soccer field to the Tempest’s airlock. She’s sure she’s never before had quite this amount of self-restraint but making out with her new boyfriend in front of a cross-species good-will soccer match doesn’t seem like the best idea so she’s forcing herself to be good. (Actually, it probably would have been pretty well received, in all honesty. Still, she’s not okay with them becoming a spectacle for people to gawk at just yet.)

But as soon as the door to the outside world has closed, she’s on him, getting up on the tips of her toes and wrapping her arms tight around his neck to reel him in for a kiss that leaves her flushed and weak at the knees, and that has him grasping at her hips to pull her flush against him. And even the thoroughly unappealing fact that they’re being decontaminated at this very moment cannot quench her need for his lips, his arms, his hands, for _him_. She has well and truly fallen feet first into this and she doesn’t even care how soon it might be, or how reckless it might seem, because she’s never been more certain of anything in her entire life.

The decontamination protocols finish and Liam steers them towards the now open door of the locker room, gets them moving in a stumble that’s sure to end with one or both of them in a heap on the floor. So she halts them in the doorway to the bridge, steadies him with a hand to his chest and eases up on the kisses until they’re short and sweet, almost chaste.

“Too fast?” he asks when she pulls back from him, rocking back on her heels to draw in a much needed grounding breath.

“No. Too hazardous. I didn’t want this to wind up with us falling onto the floor.”

He grins. “I wouldn’t have complained.”

She smiles and shakes her head. “You ass.” She rises up on her toes to kiss him but before their lips connect, she notices a distinct blob of blue in the periphery of her vision and she turns her face to see Peebee looking at them from her room, a thoroughly unimpressed expression on her face. “ _Shit_.”

Liam looks over his shoulder and sighs, “Of course.”

Peebee scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Oh, like I care. This is so two months ago, guys. _Snore_!”

Liam shrugs. “Well if that’s what you think…” And before Avery knows what’s happening he sweeps her into his arms and carries her toward the door to the glass catwalk. She just manages to catch Peebee hiding a little smile behind her hand before the door closes and they’re left blessedly alone.

Liam lets out a little groan and sets her back down. “Thwarted,” he says, pointing to the ladder they have to descend to reach her room. “I’ve never appreciated how unsexy ladders are until this moment.”

She huffs. “I kind of wish the crew who built the Tempest were here just so I could slap them for these fucking ladders.”

He shrugs as he starts to climb down before her. “Kallo’s here.”

“You think I’d want to slap Kallo?”

“I dunno,” he says, and she has to move closer to the edge to keep sight of him as he descends. “Would you?”

“No way! Have you even _met_ Kallo? After Suvi, he’s like the least dickish person on this ship.”

“Are you including yourself in that?” he asks as he reaches the bottom floor.

“Hell yeah!” She positions herself at the top of the ladder. “I may never have been that way towards you but, trust me, I am very capable of being a massive jerk, just ask Scott when he wakes up.”

She takes hold of the bars either side of the ladder and slides down. She’s about halfway down when Liam clears his throat and says, “Okay. The ladder’s sexy all of a sudden.” She rolls her eyes at him when she’s on solid ground again. “What? You’ve got a sweet arse.”

“You smooth talker you,” she says and draws him in for a quick kiss before opening the door to her room and pulling him through it.

“SAM?” she queries once the door has shut behind them. “Can you please bar anyone from contacting us unless it’s an emergency?”

“Yes, Pathfinder,” says SAM. “What should I tell anyone who does wish to reach you for a non-emergency?”

“Tell them we’re–” Liam starts.

“ _Busy_ ,” Avery interrupts. “Tell them we’re busy.”

“Very well, Avery.”

She reels Liam in for a kiss, sweeps her tongue along his bottom lip and groans when he parts for her. His mouth is so soft and warm and pliable and the way he holds her – tight but gentle – it’s like he’s holding onto something that’s infinitely precious. And she has definitely never felt anything like that before, has never felt so cherished and appreciated. She runs her hands down his body, loving the feel of him – the strength in his arms, the solidity of his chest, the warmth of his skin – only stopping when she reaches the hem of his shirt.

She pulls back from him. “Can I take this off?”

His pupils are blown wide as he stares down at her, his breath coming out in short, sharp bursts as he attempts to gain control of himself and, it hits her, _she’s_ the one doing this to him. “Yes,” he breathes. But stops her before she can. “Just wait, though. I need to make sure that this is what you really want. Us being an ‘us’ I mean.”

She grins up at him. “Does it seem like I have any doubts?”

“No, not now,” he says. “But you said that you didn’t want me to put you on a pedestal and I want you to know that I don’t do that. I just admire you. A bunch. And I’m proud of you for what you’ve managed to accomplish despite everything. Plus you make me want to be a better person, actually _do_ make me a better person.”

She laughs. “Sort of sounds like a pedestal to me.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not. It’s really not. Shit.” He lets out a frustrated groan. “How do I explain this?” He pauses, for a moment simply looks down at her with a little frown between his eyes before his face suddenly softens. “Look, if you really think I put you on a pedestal, don’t you imagine me up there with you?”

Her eyes widen. “I…” Shit. When he puts it like that… She gets it, she really gets it. “Yes, actually,” she says and presses a light kiss to his stubbled chin.

“See?” His grin is huge and the sight of that makes her feel like her heart is full to bursting.

“I think so, yeah.” There had been a little part of her that hadn’t quite believed him when he had said, “Avery, it’s about us.” But there’s no doubt that she believes him completely now; it _is_ about them (it always has been) and about the ways that they complement and uplift each other, and about the fact that they are truly at their bests and truly themselves when they’re together. She gives a shaky little laugh as the magnitude of that realisation hits her. “Shit. This is the real deal, isn’t it?”

He lifts a hand to her face and strokes her cheek with his fingers. “This whole thing would be kind of weird if it wasn’t.”

She sighs, closes her eyes and nuzzles into his touch. “You should know, I’ve never been in a serious relationship before. I’m not exactly sure I know how to do this.”

“We’ve been doing fine all this time, I don’t see why it would be any different just because we’ve finally made it ‘official’. You know Gil and Vetra have been calling us ‘the married couple’ for a couple of months now, right?”

Her eyes open wide. “What? No!”

He nods. “They think we’ve been together this whole time.”

She laughs. “Shit. Makes me wonder why we _haven’t_ been.”

He shrugs. “We’re idiots.”

She moves forward, places her lips just shy of touching his, and whispers, “The most idiotic idiots who ever lived.”

He lets out a little groan and closes the distance between them, smothering her mouth in an all-encompassing kiss and it feels beautiful but … the angle? Not great. She reluctantly pulls back from him again. “As much as I love how tall you are, at the moment my neck does not.”

“Bed?”

“Bed,” she agrees, then tugs at his shirt. “But first… Can I?”

“Of course.”

She grazes her hands up his sides as she lifts his shirt up and over his head, pleased with herself that she manages to leave his hair mostly unruffled, and there’s also something about watching centimetre by centimetre of his skin being slowly bared to her that is just so appealing. _Like unwrapping a present. A really hot present._ She leans into him, presses a kiss just below his collarbone and sucks at his skin when she hears his breath come out in a soft hiss. She drops her hands to his belt. “And this?” she breathes, raising her lips slightly to kiss at his throat.

She feels him swallow hard before he nods.

She fumbles around for a moment before she manages to get it undone and, yeah, definitely not her suavest moment, but it could have been worse so she’ll take it as a win. She flicks her thumbnail against the button at the top of his pants. “These?”

“Just hold still for a second.” He braces his hand against her shoulder to balance himself as he hops from one foot to the other to kick of his shoes and socks. “Alright. Go.”

She unbuttons and unzips his pants, lets them drop without preamble and waits for him to step out of them before she slips the tips of her fingers beneath the waistband of the underwear she’d gotten for him. “And these?”

“Okay,” he chuckles, “I’m feeling at a severe disadvantage here.”

“I didn’t get to undress you last time,” she says. “Seems only fair.”

“Yeah, but I want to kiss you. And I don’t want your neck to hurt so…?”

“Bed?”

He nods. “Bed. Definitely.”

She takes the opportunity to even things up a bit by kicking off her shoes and getting out of her pants on the way over. They fall to the bed in a tangle and once he’s settled himself atop her she’s quick to slip her shirt and bra off as well so they’re completely even now. He kisses her then. Soft and slow at first and the sweetness of that leaves her warmed and aching. She slides her hands from where they’re spread across his back down to his backside, slipping underneath his underwear and pulling them down as far as she can reach.

She lets out a little grumble into his mouth when that reach isn’t far enough and he’s laughing when he pulls back from her. “Shit, that was a cute noise,” he says as he braces himself on one hand to pull his underwear off. Then he hooks his fingers into the waistband of hers. “Okay?” She nods for him to continue and soon enough her underwear is gone and he’s draping himself over her, pressing the length of his body to hers and capturing her lips in a kiss that turns heated pretty damn quickly as they writhe together on the softness of her bed.

And definitely her favourite thing is simply how good his naked skin feels against hers.

Then he presses a thigh between hers and she finds herself grinding herself against it unashamedly, uncontrollably and it’s unbelievable how good that feels, and now _that_ is definitely her favourite thing. So far. Because she’s now pretty sure that each time she picks a favourite, it’s going to be quickly surpassed by whatever follows. So, she’s abandoning the very idea of having a favourite thing in this context, especially as his thigh shifts and his hand drifts down to replace that broad friction with a more focussed stroking that has her sighing and moaning into his mouth, and he responds with an approving hum that reverberates deep in his chest.

“Liam!” she gasps when the tip of his finger finds that perfect spot just above her clit and he has her seeing stars.

His lips trail down the arched curve of her throat. “There, right?”

“Yes,” she hisses and he rubs a slow, gentle circle into the spot, exactly the way she likes it. “ _Oh_! That feels so incredible, you don’t even know.”

“I think I might have an idea how incredible it feels…” He moves his lips further down her body, pausing to lick and kiss here and there until he reaches a nipple and blows hot air across it before taking it into his mouth and sucking and then swirling his tongue across it. She’s moaning freely now, only stopping to gasp in a sharp, sudden breath when his finger speeds up just a fraction, enough to have her body practically thrumming beneath his hands, his mouth, his body.

He switches to her other nipple and there’s just the barest hint of teeth to the opened-mouth kiss he drops to it. “Fuuuck,” she breathes, which earns her a throaty chuckle that he muffles against her breast. He moves further down her body, lips leaving a trail of kisses against her ribcage and she wants to ask why in Heleus he’s decided it’s a good idea to abandon her tits but then…

“Avery,” he groans, his breath hot against the already heated skin of her belly. “Can I go down on you?”

And she swears that the way he asks, as though she’d be doing _him_ a favour, almost makes her cum right here, right now. _Yesyesyesohmyfuckyes_ , is what she thinks. “Okay,” is what she says, her voice soft, almost a whimper.

“God, yes,” he whispers. And he probably doesn’t mean for her to hear that. But she does. And damn is it hot as all fucking hell. He slinks further down the bed, coming to settle himself between her legs and having herself bared like this is entirely new but she can’t seem to find it in herself to be self-conscious, not when he’s looking down at her like _that_. “What do you like?” he asks, and holy hell she can actually feel the heat of his breath against her as he speaks.

“Umm, I wouldn’t know,” she says. “Never had someone do this before.”

He tears his gaze from between her legs and stares at her, dumbfounded. “You’re kidding?”

“No.” She shrugs. “No one’s offered before.”

“Fucking hell,” he says, then drops a light kiss to the small patch of curls on her mound, way above where she needs him to be but even that… _shit_ , she has no clue what she’s really in for here. “I’ll take it slow. And you tell me if I do anything wrong. Or anything right, for that matter. Just … tell me, okay? I’ll do whatever you want.” As if he ever does anything else; he’s already proven himself to be very responsive to her cues when it comes to sex. ( _Fuck am I a lucky woman._ )

The first press of his mouth against her has her groaning, loud, and, god, the feel of it is… It’s so soft, so wet, so hot, so perfect. And then the slick glide of his tongue along the length of one of her outer lips has her throwing back her head as she draws in a breath so sharp it almost burns. And when he does the same to her other lip, she balls up a fist and pounds it haphazardly into the mattress.

“Don’t hold it back,” he breathes. “Tell me. Please.” He trails his tongue closer to her opening, along one inner lip then the other.

“Good,” she gasps. Then, as he repeats the motions, torturously slow and careful and oh so fucking phenomenal, “That feels good. So, so good.”

He moves his mouth to her clit, flicking it briefly with his tongue, before he presses a kiss to it, and she can actually _feel_ him smiling against her and she does not have the words to even begin to describe that. _Goddamn. Goddamn._

“Soft?” he asks. “Or harder?”

“Soft,” she answers. Always soft, always delicate; because that’s exactly what she isn’t and exactly how she’d like to feel more often.

“Oh, you’re so amazing, Avery,” he says, then traces his tongue in a slow, gentle circle around her clit. And fucking hell this is everything that she’d ever dreamt it to be. No. _More_ than that. Because what she imagined it would feel like to have someone’s mouth (and it always had been some vague ‘someone’, never any of the men she’d actually slept with because they’d been terrible and, fuck, what had she been thinking for the first five years of her sexual life?) between her legs doesn’t even come close to what it feels like having Liam lap at her with alternating swirls and then more focused flicks of his tongue.

And she’s so glad she went through the pain of having most of the hair down there permanently removed because bare as she is she can feel _everything_ , every sweep of his tongue, every press of his lips, every vibration as _he_ moans into her – _oh, my god_ – and fuck, the fact that he’s so clearly turned on by this has her panting out his name in a rough staccato of breath which he echoes by groaning her own name against her. And she’s _aching_ , splintering to pieces beneath his clever tongue and lips and she’s sure that if he hadn’t just said her name, she would have forgotten it because her whole world, her entire being is centred entirely on the surges of pleasure radiating out from her core.

“Oh, god, _Liam_ ,” she whimpers, “don’t stop, please don’t ever stop.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmurs, and laps at her clit with long then short strokes that leave her reeling and gasping for breath between stuttered ‘yeses’. And then – _oh, my god_ – he wraps his lip around her bud and sucks it into his mouth, his tongue flickering across it and she thinks she might be in heaven. Like actually in the actual heaven that she doesn’t actually believe in. Because it feels like she’s floating amongst a sea of fluffy white clouds and blinding white light.

She threads her fingers through his hair and somehow finds the strength to lift her head so that she can look down at him and when she does – “Oh, my god.” – she finds his blazing eyes locked to her face, his entire attention focussed directly on her and her pleasure, and, “Oh, oh, _ohh_!” she gasps between heaving breaths, as the first flutters signalling her release threaten to overwhelm her. She keeps her eyes trained to his the whole build-up until her back arches as if of its own free will and she throws her head back to let out a cry that stutters to pieces the moment she does, the rolling peaks of her climax drawn out by the delicate brush of his tongue and his lips and the vibrations of his moans and the blinding flash of biotics across her tingling skin.

She sprawls out on her back, her body heaving and sweaty and so fucking satiated that she can barely think through the fuzziness that’s clouding her mind with sheer bliss. He keeps licking at her until it becomes too much and she has to tug at his hair to get him to stop. “I’m done, I’m done. _Shit_ am I done.”

He drops one last, gentle kiss to her clit before he sits up, wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and gives her the dorkiest little grin she’s ever seen from him. “So…”

“Come here,” she says, pulling him down for a kiss. And there’s an unfamiliar, sharp taste on his tongue which must be _her_ taste and she really doesn’t know what to think about that, not when she’s still buzzing, but it’s not unpleasant so she keeps kissing him until the huge smile on his face makes it hard to continue.

“So,” he says, lying down next her as she rolls towards him so that they’re both on their sides, face-to-face, “I’m guessing that was good?”

“Good?” she says, her own grin matching his. “Oh, my god, don’t even get me started, Liam. I could seriously die happy right now.”

He presses a soft kiss to her lips. “Same.”

She slips her hands between their bodies, fingers grazing the hard panes of his chest and sliding down to his abs.“But you haven’t even…? _I_ was the one that just came, Liam.”

“Yeah and I did that. So I’m smug about it. I could die smug, happily fucking smug.”

“Fair enough. But don’t. I’m not done with you.”

She trails her hands lower and the first tentative brush of her fingers against the length of his erection has him sighing. “Ohhh… okay…”

“You thought we’d just leave it at that?” she asks as she stokes him with a single finger, down to his base, then back up, circling his head when she reaches the tip.

“No,” he breathes, his eyes closing for a moment when she strokes him again. “But, you don’t have to… I mean, if you’re happy then I’m happy.”

She smiles and kisses him. “Oh, I’m happy. But I’d be happier if we kept going.”

He lets out a little laugh that turns into a groan partway through. “Definitely not going to object to that.”

“Good,” she says, then wraps her hand around him and gives him a slow pump.

She likes doing this. She hasn’t always. But that’s because she hasn’t always liked the people she’s done it to. Him, though… He’s so _responsive_. The way his eyelashes flutter, the way he pulls her in for a searing kiss only to break away a moment later to draw in a sharp, shuddering breath that he lets out with a low, throaty groan, the way his fingers rub circles into the soft flesh at her hip (And that might be simply a grounding act for him. But it’s also more than likely that he’s doing it for her benefit because the gentle, soothing brush of his fingertips leaves her skin tingling in their wake and she’s sure he notices the sharp hitch in her breath and the way she practically squirms against him. And, shit, the fact that he’s still focussing on her even now makes her head fucking _spin_.), the way his hips pump in time with her hand… it’s all absolute perfection.

“Avery…” he groans against her mouth. “I want to be inside you. Can I?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “God, yes.”

She lets her hand fall away from him as she rolls onto her back and the way he groans at that – whether it’s the loss of her hand or the way she’s offering herself to him that pulls that noise from him doesn’t really matter – is so fucking flattering. He leans over her to kiss her sweetly, lingering. “Have you got a condom?”

She nods. “But don’t worry about it.”

His eyes widen. “What? Really?”

“Yeah, our blockers are still working and Lexi gave us both the all clear with … the other stuff. So… if you’d like … I mean, _I’d_ like.”

He kisses her again, just as soft, just as sweet as before. “You sure?”

She nods. “Definitely.”

“Well, then,” he says, then lets out a shaky laugh, “holy shit.”

And she’s suddenly laughing too because he would say something like that, adorable dork that he is. “Come here, dumbass,” she says, pulling at him until he’s atop her and settled between her spread thighs.

“You always know the right thing to say, Avery,” he says, as he slips a hand down between their bodies to probe at the wetness still gathered between her thighs.

“Please. I’m ready,” she says when he seems quite happy to just continue to do that (and, yeah, she’d be happy with that too because he’s fucking good at it but there’s something else insistently pressing into her inner thigh that she’s far more interested in at the moment). She reaches down between them to grasp at his cock, lining him up to her entrance.

And, after an affirming nod from her, he pushes into her with one easy, gliding thrust. Once he’s fully sheathed within her, he expels his breath in a hot, hard stream and rests his forehead against her chest. “ _Holy shit_.”

She runs her hands across his back and drops a kiss to the top of his head. “You okay?”

“Yeah…” he says. “I’ve just never done this without protection before.”

“Same.”

He lifts his head and looks at her, his eyes fierce, scorching. “Fucking hell, _right_?”

She smiles and shrugs. “Start moving and we’ll see.”

His eyes narrow and he glares at her for a short moment as she stares resolutely back before he flashes her a smile and kisses her chin. “Alright.”

And the first grind of his hips has her heaving out a long, deep sigh that ends in a startled giggle. “Ohh! Okay… Wow. Fucking hell.”

“Told you,” he says, then pulls out and thrusts back into her.

And, shit, latex can fucking fuck the fuck right off for fucking ever, as far as she’s concerned. Because, holy shit, without it, she can feel every detail, every glorious centimetre of his cock as he glides so easily into her. She touches her fingers to his cheek and draws him into a slow, hot, open-mouthed kiss as she rolls her hips in a delicious counterpoint to his thrusts. “Oh, my god,” she whimpers against his mouth.

“I _know_ ,” he breathes. “You feel … _ohh_ incredible, Avery.”

“You too,” she says, then lets out a soft cry as he snaps his hips forward.

And is this really only the second time that she’s had him inside of her? She can barely believe it. Because the way they so perfectly fit together, move together, breathe together… that has to have come from somewhere outside of reality. Sex had never been so effortless, so flawless for her before. And she’s never been in tune with anyone like she is with him right now (and also always). _Maybe this is what it’s like when you’re in love…_ she thinks. And, yeah, that sounds about right.

She wraps her legs high around his waist, locking her ankles together at the small of his back, and that shift in angle as she rocks against him is just… _ugh_. She drops her hands to his ass and pulls him tight to her as he slowly drives into her again and again, and the sound of his voice as he lets out a broken moan into her neck leaves her feeling dizzy, delirious, divine and she doesn’t even care whether or not she’s going to be able to cum again because she feels so fucking close to him right now that another orgasm seems like such a trivial matter.

He lets out a growl, “Nope. Not yet, not yet,” and pulls out of her and she’s a little indignant over how empty that leaves her feeling until he suddenly shifts down the bed, drops his face between her legs and licks into her.

“Oh, Liam,” she groans as he flattens his tongue and runs it up the entire length of her. “What are you doing to me? _Again_?”

He pauses and grins up at her from between her thighs. “You taste good,” he says, shrugging.

And she swears that she must be dying because lights are flashing behind her eyes as the whooshing of her own heartbeat thunders in her ears. But, “Oh, my god. The things you say…” she manages to moan, so she must be fine.

“You don’t like it?” he asks before he dips his head back down between her legs and laps at her, softer and more precise than when he had started and that’s … Nope, she’s not fine. She is a fucking transcendent mess.

“No– _ohh_ ,” she moans. “I love it.”

And she can barely keep up with him as he sucks and licks and laps and mouths at her and, again, her own moans are echoed by his and he is just so selfless, so vibrant, so talented, so fucking good at this that her climax rolls over her before she even knows what’s happening and she thinks she might actually black out for a second because the next thing she knows, Liam’s kissing his way back up her quivering body.

He looks a little disappointed as he comes back up to her level. “No orgasm space magic?”

She laughs. “I told you, it doesn’t happen all the time.” And, when his pout doesn’t disappear, she adds, “You blew my mind, Liam. Literally.”

He grins at her and he’s so damn cute that she just has to surge up against him so that she can press a hard kiss to the corner of his mouth. Then, because she wants to blow his mind as well, she hooks her legs around him and flips their positions, ending up with him flat on his back and her straddling him, just below where his cock (still glistening with her wetness) is standing up tall and thick from the groomed thatch of hair between his legs.

“This okay?” she asks as she drapes herself over him so that she can kiss him properly and the feeling as the tips of her breasts drag across his chest sends a surge of electricity across her almost overstimulated skin.

He groans into her mouth and nods.

Once she’s kissed him thoroughly enough to make herself feel faint, she sits up again and straddles his hips. She takes him in hand and raises herself up but before she can position him to her opening, she does a fucking stupid thing and looks out at the projection on the wall in front of her. She freezes. _That’s disconcerting…_ And then she falls sideways off of him and curls herself up on her side next to him.

He sits up and looks down at her, alarm clear as day on his face. “Hey. What is it? What’s wrong?”

She nods her head towards the window. “I could see the people out there. I swear there was one looking right at me.”

The concern on his face vanishes in an instant. “Yeah…?” he says with a wry grin. “But you know they can’t actually see you, right?”

She gives a little shudder. “I know that but … it’s weird. Didn’t you find it weird when you were…?”

He shrugs. “I wasn’t looking out _there_ , Avery. There were sort of more interesting things going on inside.” And for some reason – probably how uneasy she feels about the fucking window – that gets her giggling. “Look, just turn the projection off.”

She chews at her lip. Her omni-tool is in her pants’ pocket, and the physical controls for the projection are across the room and she doesn’t care to stand up naked in front of the window so that only leaves one option and … shit. Not cool. She covers her eyes with her hand. “SAM?” she calls out warily. Then, before it can answer her in its typical fashion, she rushes to add, “Don’t speak. Just turn off the projection, please. Quickly and quietly. Then … go back to whatever you were doing.”

“It’s off,” says Liam and she can hear the laugh in his voice.

She uncovers her eyes and gives him a pained smile. “Sorry.”

He shakes his head and laughs. “You’re crazy.”

She groans. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

He curls his legs underneath him in a kneel and pulls her to him. “Hey, don’t worry about it. It was actually pretty cute.”

She wraps an arm around his neck as she settles into his lap and gives him an uncertain look. “Really?”

He presses a soft kiss to her lips. “Really.”

“And I haven’t killed the mood?”

He glances down towards his crotch. “Does it look like you have?”

She smiles at him and strokes the tip of a finger up the length of his still completely hard cock. “Nope.”

He lets out a groan as his eyes flutter closed. “See? Not a problem.”

She closes the distance between them, pushing her breasts flush to his chest and pressing her mouth down to his. She moans when she finds his lips already parted for her and again when he sucks her tongue into his mouth. When he kisses her like this, it will never fail to get her where she needs to be, never fail to leave her quivering and aching for more, to make her feel oh so aroused and oh so arousing.

She takes him in hand and gives him a soft pump. “Ready?”

“Absolutely.”

She lowers herself down onto him in one smooth, slick motion that has them both moaning. “Don’t hold back, okay?”

He takes the hand that she had just had curled around him and twines his fingers with hers. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to last long, Avery.”

She smiles and nips at his bottom lip with her teeth. “Good. Because all I want now is to feel you fall to pieces beneath me.”

“ _Holy shit_ ,” he breathes and she would laugh at that if it didn’t make her feel so damn sexy.

She draws in a deep breath and then slowly grinds down into his lap. Already, she’s coming to love the feeling of having him nestled deep inside of her. There’s no other who has managed to fill and stretch her so completely, so perfectly. He’s warm and thick and hard and flawless, and fuck she could stay like this forever if she hadn’t already set herself the goal to make him shatter apart beneath her (and that’s definitely a worthy goal for her to set, because he has devoted all of his attention solely on her up until this point, and he deserves it, he deserves everything and – _Ha!_ – how did she ever think that he put her up on a pedestal when it’s now so damn obvious to her that they both think too highly of each other?)

She raises herself up and starts to move her hips in a steady roll that has him squeezing at her fingers as he moans, “Avery, seriously, I’m so close already.”

“Already?” she teases. “You’ve gotten me off _twice_ now. It’s okay for you to let go. Just…” She kisses him, sweeps her tongue over his top lip, sucks his bottom one briefly into her mouth. “… let go.”

He lets out a broken moan and starts to meet each of her downward thrusts with a sharp snap of his hips. The air is a mingle of their combined moans and hot, panting breaths and she could drift off into that miasma if she really wanted to, could just let go with him, but she wants to see him, to watch as he unravels. So she draws back just enough that she can see his face, can watch with a kind of awe as his mouth slackens, as his moans grow louder and hoarser, as his hips begin to stutter out of sync with the sinuous rolling of her own, as the fingers that are laced with hers spasm, and he throws back his head and stiffens against her and _in_ her and shit she can feel him pulsing, feel the unfamiliar sensation of him emptying into her.

He rocks forward and drops her back onto the mattress, falling with her so that he’s resting between her thighs, his forehead pressed to her clavicle as he gasps for breath. “Holy shit. That was… just give me a sec, okay?”

“Okay,” she answers and there’s something weird about her voice, even to her own ears, it sounds strained and brittle like…

He peers blearily up at her, then his eyes widen. “Shit. Oh no. Are… are you _crying_?”

“What?” She touches her fingers to her face to find an unexpected wetness underneath her eyes. “No– Yes. A little bit? I don’t know…”

“Uh… Sad crying?”

“No! The exact opposite. Shit. I’m just…” _Fuck. Words. How do they work?_ “…Really fucking happy right now.”

“God, Avery. You’re gonna make me cry, too.”

“I’m _not_ crying,” she says, proving herself wrong by letting out a single sob. What the hell is happening to her? Avery Ryder does not cry. “I’m just a little teary, okay? On account of all the feelings. There’s just … too many of them.”

He smiles at her, kindly, tenderly, and leans forward to press kisses to her chin, her cheeks, her nose, her forehead, as she sighs. Then he uses his fingers to gently wipe away her tears and the sensitivity of that act could make her start to properly cry, but it just makes her giggle instead.

His breath fans out across her cheeks as he huffs out a short, sharp laugh. “You alright?”

She shakes with laughter for a moment longer before she can get a hold of herself. “Yeah… just a little overwhelmed, I guess.”

He smiles uncertainly. “In a good way?”

She nods and draws him down for a soft kiss. “The best.”

“Well,” he says giving her a swift peck. “Good.”

She lets out a groan as he rolls off of her and slips out of her but then she clenches her legs together as she feels his cum trickling out as well and, shit, that’s new. Not at all unpleasant, just a little annoying to be honest. And awkward. Fuck. “Uhh… could you?” she gestures to the box of tissues on the table on his side of the bed.

“What?” He frowns in confusion but then looks down at her legs clamped tightly together and his mouth pops open in a soft, “Ahh.” He twists around and reaches for the box. “Sure, here.”

He has the grace and etiquette to turn aside as she cleans herself up. But then she’s left with a wad of soiled tissues and… _fuck_ , just her fucking luck, the bin is on the other side of the bed too. She leans across him to try to reach but once he realises what she’s doing he holds out his hand. He rolls his eyes when he sees her hesitation. “It’s _mine_ , Avery. And it’s not like I haven’t had the stuff all over my hands before so, _seriously_ , not a problem.”

She hands it over and falls onto her side, laughing. He stretches out beside her after he’s disposed of the tissues and draws her to him, taking her hands in his.

“You’re gross,” she says, once her laughter has subsided.

He raises a single eyebrow at her. “Oh, yeah? Then what does that make you?”

She shrugs. “A trash collector.”

He tries to hide his grin behind their entwined hands but she sees it and when she ducks her head to the side so that she can press a kiss to his smiling mouth, he laughs. “Heh. You’re awesome.”

She pulls one of her hands from his so that she can brush back a stray curl that has fallen across his forehead. “You know, I’ve never felt anything like this. About you. About us.” She lets her hand linger on his face, fingers skimming the pane of a cheekbone and then down to his jawline.

He sighs and lets his eyes fall closed for a brief moment. “Same.” He hums against her lips when she kisses him. “Only… it’s weird. We were on the Citadel at the same time when we were kids. Maybe even London a couple of times, too. But we never met. And I kind of regret that.”

“Only kind of?”

“Yeah… I’m not sure I would’ve been right for you back then.”

“Yeah you’re probably right,” she says, fingertips scratching into the stubble on his chin. “I’m not a fan of fierce beards.”

“That was later, but it _was_ impressive. You should’ve seen it.”

“I think imagining it is enough.”

He laughs. “Probably. But it is weird though, right? That we had to travel to a whole other galaxy to find each other?”

She nods. “Definitely weird but also awesome. With all the bullshit, this,” she draws him in for a long kiss, “means that it was all worth it.”

He lets out a happy little sigh then suddenly sits up. “Well, on that note, I think that’s my cue to leave. See, I’ve sort of got this other girl waiting…”

She snorts and pushes him, harder than she means to, hard enough that he disappears off the bed in a flurry of flailing limbs. “Oh, my god!” She gets up into a kneel and looks over to see him in a heap on the floor and the sight of his shocked, indignant face just destroys her. She lets out a whoop of laughter, and soon enough she’s rolling around on the bed, laughing so hard her stomach actually hurts. “I’m so sorry,” she wheezes, when his head pops up over the edge of the bed. “I did _not_ mean to do that.”

He hops back up onto the bed and pounces onto her, straddling her hips and pinning her hands to either side of her head. “ _That_ ,” he says, his smile jubilant, “was the best thing you’ve ever done to me!”

She raises her eyebrows at him. “ _Really_?”

“Yeah… okay. Not the best,” he concedes. “But after all the sex stuff and the fixing my stupid mistakes and just generally being awesome to me, that was the best.” He lets go of her hands and dances his fingers up her sides in a tickle that doesn’t do a damn thing. He frowns down at her. “Wha–?

“Sorry,” she says, shrugging. “Not ticklish.”

He huffs as he gets off of her. “Well, that’s no fun.”

“ _You’re_ no fun,” she counters, as she rolls onto her side and pulls him into a hug.

“Okay, now you’re just lying right to my goddamn face.”

“Hmm,” she agrees, “but you love it.”

“I do,” he says and kisses her, soft and sweet. “I really, really do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm probably done with the smut for a little while. I've got some ideas for some sfw pieces to fill in the blanks in the series that I need to flesh out/write/edit. But, first I've gotta fix my damn sleep schedule, because staying up to 6.30am writing fanfiction is not how you adult, no it is not.
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think if you are so inclined.


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